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Distress Centre's crisis line doubles long-term volunteers

Few have the aptitude to answer a crisis line. But those who pass the screening and training often stick with it, finding deep rewards in lifting others’ burdens a little.

Eric Matilla has been a volunteer with the Toronto Distress Centre's crisis line for close to three decades, offering a sympathetic ear to people suffering struggles with mental health or addiction. (JANE GERSTER / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Bud Tangney has been answering the crisis telephone line at the Toronto Distress Centre for 17 years. (JANE GERSTER / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Hopeful that he’s helped coax someone back from the edge or given them the kind, listening ear they needed; uncertain, because he will never meet his callers and for the most part will never know for sure if his words have helped.

“They’ll come up, just a little bit, but they’re not going to be happy,” Mattila says. “Their problems will not have gone away, but you’ll feel an emotional shift … and you hope they’ll call back.”

Such is the life of the volunteers who staff Toronto’s distress lines.

It is emotionally demanding but leaves you feeling as though you’ve made a difference, says Mattila, and others among the distress line’s 400 or so volunteers.

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Many people are interested in the job, but few have the aptitude for it. Some don’t make it through training. In 2013, nearly 1,000 people applied to volunteer, but only 259 passed the screening and entered training, and about 200 of those graduated to the phone rooms.

The average volunteer stays just nine months, three months shy of the year-long minimum commitment the centre requests.

Often they leave because of changing schedules, but in the past three years, the number of volunteers staying for more than two or three years — including at least one overnight shift a month — has doubled, from 15 per cent to 30 per cent.

And there are a handful of volunteers who have been there for decades, who feel a personal connection to an issue that affects so many.

One in five Canadians experiences mental health or addiction problems. Every week, at least 500,000 employed Canadians are unable to work because of these problems, and every day, an average of 11 people die by suicide.

The long tenure of some phone volunteers is a feat not just for the centre, but for volunteering generally.

Volunteer Canada, a resource and advocacy group, helps to strike a balance between the long-term needs of organizations and the short-term goals of many volunteers.

“We need to remember our circumstances change throughout our lives, then to pinpoint the times and circumstances where short-term works best and other times where long-term works best,” says Paula Speevak-Sladowski, Volunteer Canada’s director of programs, policy and applied research.

Figuring out how to get people interested in longer-term volunteer opportunities has its challenges. The answer, says Speevak-Sladowski, lies in linking people with a job that resonates, that makes them feel their work is valued and useful.

“There’s a certain magic that happens when you feel that,” she says.

This is the magic the Toronto Distress Centre is tapping into with its growing number of dedicated volunteers.

“They volunteer because they have been helped, because they have been impacted by a personal story,” says Karen Letofsky, the centre’s executive director and a longtime phone line volunteer. “The percentage of people staying as long as they do in our program far exceeds what the average volunteer commitment is in any other organization … there is a real draw to the cause, to the mission and to the kind of work we’re doing.”

Mattila has been answering the phone lines for close to three decades. Bud Tangney has been answering the lines for 17 years. Both are original members of the long-term contingent.

What they’ve learned is that most callers aren’t suicidal and aren’t beset by huge, unfixable crises. The calls come mostly after business hours, when the city’s regular social and mental health services aren’t available. In this way, they help fill the cracks that exist in the mental health system for upwards of 75,000 callers each year.

Mattila recalls one caller who just needed some company while he waited for his schizophrenia medications to kick in; Tangney recalls another who couldn’t sleep and needed reassurance, but didn’t want to wake up his family or friends.

“You do get those crisis calls, but there are a lot of other calls along the way,” Tangney says. “It’s people who are lonely, people who are depressed, people who just need contact with somebody else in the world.”

It’s not what you say, Mattila says, so much as how you connect.

“It’s a matter of getting in close to acknowledge the feelings that they’re going through,” he says, “to acknowledge the horrible emotional pain, the exhaustion, the fear and — as much as possible — be there with them.”

The Toronto distress line can be reached 24/7 at 416-408-4357.

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